According to scientists at Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute group situations lower your intelligence and women are more susceptible.

Using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scientists at Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute examined how the brain processes information about social status in small groups and how these perceptions could influence expressions of cognitive capacity.

Read Montague, who led the study, commented rather alarmingly: “You may joke about how committee meetings make you feel brain dead, but our findings suggest that they may make you act brain dead as well”

Volunteers were matched by IQ and placed in small groups. When they were told about other volunteer’s performances it appeared to lower their problem solving abilities.

“…when we placed them in small groups, ranked their performance on cognitive tasks against their peers, and broadcast those rankings to them, we saw dramatic drops in the ability of some study subjects to solve problems. The social feedback had a significant effect.”

During the study a difference between the genders emerged. Of the IQ baseline matched men and women, women were more likely to fall into the lower performing group. It’s not mentioned whether or not this was because the women couldn’t get a problem solving word in.

Co-author Professor Steven Quartz, said: “The idea of a division between social and cognitive processing in the brain is really pretty artificial. The two deeply interact with each other.”